McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue; Buckell, Sly Mongoose (#1-2)

[kate_nepveu]

My first two books for the challenge. Unlike some, I am going to count books I "was going to read anyway," partly because the challenge might prompt me to pick books up sooner—and given my to-be-read bookcase, that's no small thing—and partly because I want to see what the overall distribution looks like at the end of the calendar year. All of these are crossposted from my booklog, with links to the original posts at the end of the review.

First, John McWhorter, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, a non-fiction popular-level linguistics work:

I enjoyed The Power of Babel so much that when I saw that John McWhorter had a new pop-linguistics book, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, I put it at the top of my Christmas list. This is much less dense than Babel, but seems to be carefully argued as best I can tell, and is still an enjoyable read.

McWhorter argues that the traditional story of English's evolution is much less interesting and complex than the real thing, which in his telling has two under-recognized components. First, because English co-existed with Celtic languages for centuries, weird things happened to English's grammar like having to use "do" in questions and negative sentences. Second, because the Vikings showed up and learned English as a second language, they knocked a lot of the embellishments off of English, leaving it the least complex of the Germanic languages. (And even Proto-Germanic, McWhorter argues, is less complex than other languages descended from Proto-Indo-European. He hypothesizes that this may have been because Phoenicians learned it as a second language, but notes that so far this is just a hypothesis.)

After these two under-recognized components of English's history, McWhorter draws broader lessons about language. English's bastard grammar shows that, from a linguistics point of view, there's no such thing as "errors"; arbitrary rules are just that, arbitrary. And from the reduced complexity of English after the Vikings got through with it, McWhorter argues that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that language strongly channels thought) has to be wrong, because we aren't less able to deal with complexity today than Anglo-Saxon villagers were.

None of this will be hugely surprising to those who've listened to his lecture series on historical linguistics, but the additional detail and the handy print nature of the book nevertheless make it worth reading. Just don't expect anything as detailed as Babel, and you'll be all set.

[ original booklog post ]

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Second, Tobias S. Buckell, Sly Mongoose, an SF novel:

Tobias S. Buckell's Sly Mongoose is set after Ragamuffin and is perhaps a bit more of a series book than previous installments. Like Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose is a solidly fun SF story with some interesting things to say about power, prejudice, and responsibility.

The book opens with Pepper, a character in the prior two books, de-orbiting the planet Chilo with nothing more than a spacesuit and a personal heatshield. He brings warning of the Swarm, which he calls "groaning, stumbling, dumb-as-fuck, old-school zombies." Except, well, they're actually even more dangerous than that.

The other point of view character is Timas. Chilo's population live in cloud cities, floating above the killing temperatures and pressures at the surface of the Venus-like environment. His ancestors were Azteca on New Anegada who Reformed (disavowed human sacrifice) and left when it was revealed that their gods were actually aliens. Timas's city survives on materials mined from the surface, but because they've fallen on hard economic times, they cannot afford new powered suits for the surface work. Only young men like Timas can fit into the equipment that remains, a position of honor, privilege, and overwhelming responsibility. But that doesn't ensure that anyone in his xenophobic society will listen when he thinks he sees an alien on the surface.

So: deorbiting without a spaceship, cloud cities, zombies, Reformed Azteca, and mysterious hidden aliens—and that's just in the first two sections. There's lots more fun SFnal goodness along the way, plus the aforementioned thematic considerations, and a sense that the universe is continuing to expand and complicate. And lest this summary give the wrong impression, there are two major female characters whose portrayal I was eventually quite pleased by.

My only negative comment is that Pepper occasionally gives me an appeal of the lawless elite twinge of misgiving. Yes, it's quite clear that he's not a nice person, but I think it's also clear that he's supposed to be cool, so . . .

I'd say read Ragamuffin first, but if you liked that, definitely read this one too.

Also, I have decreed that this series is to be known as the Forty-Eight Worlds series, because I have to file it under something, until the author says differently.

[ original booklog post ]

Comments

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I'll probably be giving McWhorter a pass since I hate his ass so much.

[waelisc.livejournal.com]

Why do you hate him?

I haven't read his books but I did listen to the audio course mentioned above. I learned a lot, although he seemed a little snarky. But I don't know anything about him beyond the author bio on the audio course site.

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

My enmity stems from the way he dipped his hand into the ebonics debate that blew up in Oakland in the mid-90s; McWhorter was teaching at Cal at the time. He became the go-to-guy for more conservative elements that used the debates as a referendum on Black kids and education (i.e. "Blame that damned rap music"). Unfortunately, other language experts who actually had a clue didn't get half as much play.

[waelisc.livejournal.com]

I'll have to read more about this, it sounds infuriating. Thanks for the clarification.

[kate_nepveu]

I also will have to read up, as what he said about Black English in the stuff I've listened to/read seemed pretty reasonable to me--just another dialect, not "wrong," probably not a creole, IIRC.

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

He's really changed his tune then. I just remember seeing him on TV and he was barely wanting to acknowledge that it was a legitimate dialect. There's some class issues that come into play with him.

[kate_nepveu]

The class issues would not surprise me; I've deliberately avoided any of his more social or political stuff because I'm aware that our politics don't match.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think that Pepper is sometimes Dirty Harry/Zorro simpliciter, and sometimes Buckell problematizes that whole business in a very insightful way.

There are some exchanges in the book (which I just read last week myself, and loved) that were very resonant in the light of RaceFail!09, especially this one (between characters from two very different cultures):

"You asked if we used any nasty words to describe you. As if that somehow might excuse your using similar words. That's deflecting the issue, {character}."

I liked this more than the previous books in the series. Go go Tobias Buckell, is what I say!

[kate_nepveu]

I agree about Pepper; it just gives me cognitive dissonance.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm sorry for being unclear--I also had the kind of experience that I think you're describing while reading this.

Kind of AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME hey wait what do I think about this AWESOME AWESOME hey hold on here AWESOME AWESOME. I am very allergic to the Dirty Harry mythos and the Zorro mythos undiluted, but fascinated by commentary on them, so the mixed draft here was unsettling.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, no, you weren't unclear, we are in violent agreement!

[tobias-buckell.livejournal.com]

Interesting thoughts! I struggle with the concept of the lawless elite and linked your conversation and tried to add in some thoughts about the problem and attraction we have with the lawless elite: http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2009/02/23/the-appeal-of-the-lawless-elite/

Thanks for the review!

Best,

TB

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks for stopping by--I was wondering if I should send you e-mail because I'd gone and named your series for you => , but I figured you'd see one or another version of this eventually.

Other comments over at your blog.

[tobias-buckell.livejournal.com]

I call it the 'Xenowealth Series' because of what happens at the end of Sly, something I was working toward. But since there's going to be a hold on any new books in this series for a bit I'm not too worried about what it's called LOL.

[kate_nepveu]

Hey, names are important! I will go and change the series category name over at my booklog.